Category Archives: shipping conditions

East India Company Routes

Excellent video animating East India Company 1798-1834… http://vimeo.com/43884291

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The Bloody Business of War

I discovered something interesting that somehow I had managed to miss all those years ago about the massacre at Karantina… Years ago, I wrote in my first book (which was based on my PhD research) which also included stories about … Continue reading

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“steampunk shipping containers”

  And here is the story.

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Shipping Alliances

The world’s top three shipping lines are, in order, Maersk (Denmark’s second largest company after Lego), MSC (a privately-held Italian firm), and CMA CGM (a French firm).  Some time ago, they decided that they were going to start up an alliance, … Continue reading

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How the (closure of the) Suez Canal changed the world

The segment of my January/February container-ship journey I am most anticipating is passing through the Suez Canal.  Here is what Horatio Clare writes about his passage through Suez: Unfinished wars lie under all our horizons.  The chart on which Chris plotted our … Continue reading

Posted in infrastructure, Middle East, militaries, political economy, ports, shipping conditions, ships, transport, war | 4 Comments

The Uses of Shipping Containers

There is a deep fascination with shipping containers… The best reading on all of this is of course the classic The Box  by Marc Levinson – but recently there are a lot more links.  Here are a few more: This piece … Continue reading

Posted in infrastructure, political economy, shipping conditions, transport | 1 Comment

The docks as a non-place

Francisco Goldman and Jean-Claude Izzo speak to each other through their respective novels, The Ordinary Seaman and The Lost Sailors.  Both are stories about waiting in the docks, literally, in a floating metal tub full of holes.  Both tell stories within stories … Continue reading

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Rime of mariners ancient or modern

I think I read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner some years ago when i was young, but like a great many great works of literature, it is a poem that is wasted on the youth.  Its sense of regret, loss, … Continue reading

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The Cargo Cults of USA – Part I

John McPhee has taught David Remnick and Richard Stengel and a few other famous journalists to write, and apparently he is a fixture of The New Yorker, but his work is so much more interesting that those of his proteges, and … Continue reading

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Innovative use of shipping data

This fascinating little research report talks about how historical shipping logbooks can be used to keep track of environmental data.  These logbooks include “historical logbooks recorded by explorers, whalers and merchants during epic expeditions between 1750 and 1850, including famous … Continue reading

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